Back in 1982, Michael Jackson did something a lot of folks have forgotten. He sat down and wrote a song for somebody else. Not for himself, for Diana Ross.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, Diana Ross was one of the biggest stars Motown ever had. She led the Supremes through the 1960s, then went solo and sold records all over the world. Michael had looked up to her since he was a little boy, back when the Jackson 5 were just getting started at that same label.
The song he wrote and produced for her was called “Muscles.” It came out in September 1982. That’s Michael singing the soft backing vocals on it too, though his name wasn’t printed on the label for that part.
People took to it. “Muscles” climbed all the way to No. 10 on the Billboard chart and earned Diana a Grammy nomination. A slow, slinky little record, and a genuine hit for her.
So where did that strange one-word title come from?
Michael kept a pet at home. An eight-foot boa constrictor, and its name happened to be Muscles. Fans have long said that’s where the title came from.
A writer from Rolling Stone magazine went out to Michael’s house early in 1983 to interview him for the cover. Michael, being Michael, decided to have a little fun with his guest. The way the magazine told it, “Seconds later, an eight-foot boa constrictor is deposited on the dining-room table.”
Right there. Next to the reporter’s notebook.
Then Michael looked at him and said, “This is Muscles. And I have trained him to eat interviewers.” He was teasing, of course. That was his humor, shy and mischievous at the same time.
The clip below comes from around that same stretch of time. You get to see Muscles out of his tank with Michael and the people around him, and it shows you a side of him the magazine covers never quite caught.
Michael and his pet snake Muscles on camera in 1983
Now for the song that started all this. If you’ve never actually heard “Muscles,” it’s worth a few minutes. It’s smoother and odder than you’d think, and knowing a real live snake was curled up somewhere in that house while Michael wrote it only makes the whole thing better.
Diana Ross sings the Michael Jackson song “Muscles”
Michael and Diana stayed close for years after that. He often said she was one of the people who helped shape him as a performer, going all the way back to those early Motown days. The song came and went on the charts like songs do. The name, though, lived right there in Michael’s house, and now you know the story behind it.